Analysis of Issues of Vietnam’s Joining the TPP

Jungran Cho 인하대학교 정석물류통상연구원 2015 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LOGISTICS AND TRADE Vol.13 No.2

Vietnam has been actively integrated into a multilateral trading system based on its accession to the WTO and the implementation of a series of ASEAN+1 FTAs. Now Vietnam is negotiating to be a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, which is a region-wide FTA in the Asia-Pacific region, and a total of 21 working groups have been negotiating 29 chapters of the TPP. This paper tries to assess major issues of Vietnam’s joining the TPP, and to draw policy implications such as initiatives for Vietnam’s acceleration of its renovation and economic restructuring programs; and domestic measures for facilitating FTA implementation by firms and enhancing the country"s implementation capacity.

우리나라 FTA 영향 실증분석 - 한ㆍ칠레 FTA를 중심으로

조정란(Cho Jungran),박영일(Park Young-Il),정인교(Cheong Inkyo) 인하대학교 산업경제연구소 2007 경상논집 Vol.21 No.1

  Korea recorded a great performance in establishing FTAs with trading partners in recent years. Although high economic effects are expected in advance based on research papers, it is not sure whether the initial estimates would be realized when the FTAs become implemented.<BR>  This paper tried to empirically assess the trade effects of Korea"s first FTA with Chile, which is the only FT A that can be tested based on the trade data of at least 3 years. Korea could increase its exports to Chile with 44% growth rate on average during last 3 years, which is higher than twice of Korea"s average export growth rate to the world, implying the high export performance of the FTA.

동아시아 지역주의 현황과 시사점

조정란(Cho Jungran) 인하대학교 산업경제연구소 2008 경상논집 Vol.22 No.1

Although East Asia has been regarded as one of the three pillars of the world economy, the progress of economic integration in the region has been slow, unlike the progress in North America and Europe. In East Asia, functional integration through expanded trade and investment throughout the region has been considerably progressing. Political leaders in East Asia began to discuss how to achieve closer economic relations via the process of ASEAN+3 When a pan-regional economic bloc is established in East Asia, the world economy can be reorganized into a three-pole economic system made up roughly of the EU, America, and East Asia. This paper analyzes economic relations in East Asia and discusses current progress of FTAs in the region, followed by the review of the progress of the East Asian FTA, and policy implications for building the FTA.

통상피해와 무역조정지원(TAA) 제도 연구

조정란(Jungran Cho),알탄체첵(Altantsetseg Balgansuren ),채수홍(Soohong Chae) 한국국제상학회 2023 國際商學 Vol.38 No.1

전 세계에서 미국, 유럽연합(EU)과 우리나라만이 무역개방 피해에 대한 국내대책의 일환으로 Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) 제도를 운영하고 있다. 2006년 우리나라는 무역조정지원법을 제정했고, 그 동안 지원기준을 완화하고 심사절차를 줄이는 등 국내 TAA를 보완해 왔다. 2022년 우리나라는 ‘대외통상환경 변화로 인한 무역피해’(이하 통상피해) 기업도 TAA 지원 대상이 될 수 있게 무역조정지원법을 개정했다. 이로써 미국과 EU 제도와의 유사성을 높이게 되었지만 통상피해 기업에 대한 지원이 차질없이 가능할 것인가에 대해서는 의문이 적지 않다. 대부분의 중소기업들이 입증하기 어려운 무역개방으로 인한 피해 혹은 통상피해가 확인되어야 TAA 지원이 가능하도록 규정되어 있기 때문이다. 본 논문에서 저자들은 우리나라 TAA 제도의 개선사항을 평가하고 2022년 도입된 통상피해지원 제도가 충실하게 이행되도록 하기 위한 방안을 제시하고자 한다. Purpose: This paper tries to evaluate Korea's Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) system and proposes measures to more faithfully implement amendments to the TAA legislation from 2022. Research design, data, and methodology: This paper focuses on the regulations related to the TAA system, and on the problems that may arise from the regulations. Results: TAA support is allowed only when damage caused by the opening of trade is proven and confirmed. But it is very difficult for most small and medium-sized companies to prove trade damage. Conclusions: While the TAA system is designed to support trade-damaged companies, it should also include policies that focus on restructuring the business of a damaged company.

原産地認證輸出者制度

趙貞蘭(Jungran CHO) 인하대학교 정석물류통상연구원 2010 인하대학교 정석물류통상연구원 학술대회 Vol.2010 No.7

FTA 원산지기준의 파급영향 분석

정인교,조정란 정석물류통상연구원 2007 FTA 원산지기준의 파급영향 분석 Vol. No.

One of the differences between Customs Union(CU) and free trade agreement (FTA) is the authority to change tariffs on imports from non-member countries. CU member countries introduce common tariff rates against non-member countries, and they cannot change tariff rates voluntarily without prior consultation with other member countries. CU also needs ROO during the transitional period toward the implementation of common external tariffs. However, FTA member countries can set tariff rates (not higher than WTO bound rates) independently. Because tariff rates of the member countries of an FTA are different, trade deflection can occur.Trade deflection means that a good imported via a low tariff FTA member country is re-exported into a country with high tariff without paying tariffs. In order to prevent trade deflection, FTA member countries introduce specific rules, regulating that only the goods satisfying the rules be given preferential treatments in terms of tariffs. These rules are called rules of origin (ROO). Stringent ROOcan discourage exporters not to take advantage of tariff preferences provided by FTAs, undercutting the economic gains of FTAs. As different ROOs are introduced by overlapping FTAs, the spaghetti-bowl problem may be present, enforcing dampening trade effects of the ROO. Because of the experimental operating difficulties of the ROO, there is alimited numbers of researches on the stringent ROO effects on trade. Examples are Cadet, et al (2002), Carrere and de Me1o(2004), Kunimoto and Sawchuk(2005), Herm(1986) and Krueger (1995). There are 3 criteria for defining ROO in FTAs. The first criterion is Change in Tariff Classification (CTC) or "tariff line shift." CTC is widely used in regional trading agreements (RTAs), and is preferred by the World Customs Organization (WCO), which promotes the simplification and harmonization of ROO. CTC is based on the Harmonized System (HS), classifying goods at a two-digit chapter level, a four-digit heading level, a six-digit subheading level or an eight (ten)-digit level. The second rule is the requirement of Regional (local) Value Contents (RVC), implying the requirement that the product should acquire a minimum regional value in exporting country or a region of a RTA. The rule of regional value contents can be considered in various ways such as export value, import value and value of parts included in an article. However, we do not consider these separately, regarding all methods as regional value contents. The third rule is the requirement of Technical Process (TP), which requires a specific production process for an item. Each criterion has merits as well as demerits, as shown in Table 1. The CTC approach is relatively simple in requiring the comparison between the tariff line of a final product and those of intermediate materials, but it bears an intrinsic problem in that the HS system does not follow industrial classifications for many products. ROOs act like trade barriers, since they cause extra costs in production and management. Producers/exporters need to pay costs for calculating production costs and producing bookkeeping related documents. Regarding empirical research on administrative costs in a FTA and costs of preparing documents for preferential treatment, refer to Koskinen (1983) and Herin (1986), respectively. Also, extra costs will be incurred in complying with technical and specific process and regional value contents as specified in the ROO protocol, and these costs will be added to the prices of export goods. Several empirical researches on the costs of stringent ROO under NAFTA show substantial costs to intra-regional traders and producers. For example, Cadot et al (2002) found that theutilization rate of NAFTA preferences is as low as 64% due to stringent ROO in part. Regarding more information on the costs of ROO, refer to Estevadeordal (2003, pp.8-9). East Asian countries have short history about FTAs, and politically strong agriculture sector, which interrupt discussion on the conclusion of FTAs in various ways. Governments in the region are not quite active in moving toward the bandwagon of global trend of economic integration, although getting involved with the negotiation of FTAs. therefore, these countries tend to introduce restrictive ROO. Korea is promoting a FTA with US, and it is known that both parties are supportive of restrictive ROO in the bilateral FTA. The FTAs by Korea with Chile, Singapore, and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) have similar ROOs, which are based on the NAFTA ROO. Therefore, it is highly possible that the two countries agree on a NAFTA ROO, which is one of most stringent ROO in FTAs. It is recommended that Korea and US should introduce a neutral and loose type of ROO in their FTA for the higher economic gains.

An Empirical Study on the Utilization Ratio of FTAs by Korean Firms

INKYO CHEONG,JUNGRAN CHO 한국무역학회 2009 Journal of Korea trade Vol.13 No.2

Overlapping and complicated FTAs have been progressing ahead in East Asia, but the issue of the ‘Asian noodle bowl’ rose as one of the research topics in regional economic integration a few years ago. The topic gave rise to concern with the finding of low business utilization ratio of FTAs in sample East Asian countries. This raised the necessity of a survey on the utilization ratio of Korea’s FTAs since the country has been promoting FTAs most actively in the region for last several years. This paper tried to study Korean firms’ utilization of FTAs under current implementation and the general attitude towards FTAs. One of main findings is that only one out of five Korean firms surveyed utilizes FTAs, although about half of the firms evaluated FTAs to be beneficial for their businesses. This paper asserts that the government has been less successful in promoting useful FTAs for business so far. It emphasizes that the government should push forward various schemes for enhancing the firms’ utilization of FTAs rather than voicing up the merits of FTAs.

The Evaluation of East Asian Regionalism from APEC to RCEP

Inkyo Cheong,Jungran Cho 인하대학교 정석물류통상연구원 2013 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LOGISTICS AND TRADE Vol.11 No.1

Building a large trading bloc tends to produce substantial economic gains, while minimizing economic losses from overlapping FTAs. East Asia has tried to generate the impetus for promoting region-wide trading blocs, but most of those blocs have been overlapped and multilayered. This paper reviews the evolution of East Asian regionalism from the APEC FTA under the 1994 Bogor Goal to recent RCEP promoted in 2013. This paper underlines that the continued expansion of multilayered trading blocs in East Asia works as a serious obstacle to regional economic integration, rather than exploring the realization of a region-wide trading bloc.

Business Use of FTAs in Korea

Inkyo CHEONG,Jungran CHO 인하대학교 정석물류통상연구원 2010 인하대학교 정석물류통상연구원 학술대회 Vol.2010 No.7

This paper reviews the impact of Korea"s FTAs on trade and business, reporting substantial trade growth with FTA partner countries with some exceptions. It also analyzes FTA use by firms, and tries to present the effects of the FTAs on the Korean business firms. According to the paper, Korea"s first four FTAs demonstrate big differences in the utilization rates. In general, the degree of FTA utilization was found to be higher with imports than with exports. Korea-Chile FTA utilization rate for Korean imports reported average of 90.5% for the four years since the FTA was implemented. In the case of Korea-Singapore FTA, Korea-EFTA FTA and Korea-ASEAN FTA, however, the utilization rates were average 29.8%, 42.5%, and 43.3%, respectively. The paper identifies the reasons for poor FTA utilizations in those FTAs, and tries to suggest policy implications for improving FTA utilization by firms.

한-EU FTA의 한국 경제에 대한 파급영향

정인교(Inkyo Cheong),조정란(Jungran Cho) 한국무역학회 2007 貿易學會誌 Vol.32 No.5